Mystics and Heretics in Italy. By Emile Gebhart. (Allen and
Unwin. 12s. 6d. net.)—The two most important works of Emile Gebhart are Les Origin's de la Renaissance en Italie, published in 1879, and L'Italie Mystique, which appeared eleven years later. Of this last the present book is a translation. It was a work well worth doing, for L' Italie Mystique is a delightful book. It covers a period extending from the twelfth to the fourteenth century and includes character-studies of great personalities such as Arnold of Brescia, Joachim of Flora,. the Emperor Frederick tr.. (grandson of Barbarossa), St. Francis of .Assisi, and Dante. Gebhart's method of reconstructing history is vivid and sympathetic ; the chapter on Francis of Assisi is a good instance of it. By a careful selection and arrangement of historical facts and traditional anecdotes in which visions and miracles are included without comment as appropriate poetic elements he evokes a convincing and charming personality. The method, in fact, is as a whole synthetic rather than analytic, artistic rather than scientific ; though the analytical and scien- tific have, of course, a certain function in it. The translation is excellently done by Professor Edward Hulme, who has prefaced it with a brief account of Gebhart and his work and concluded it with a bibliography of all Gebhart's work which has appeared in book form.
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